SUMMARY: The interest of the Chinese media in agricultural biotechnology follows the wide-ranging and growing interests of the public in this topic. Journalists who seek to access experts, locations where biotechnology crops are developed and grown, and up-to-date information now find new support from the science and agriculture community.
Around the world, the media contributes to public awareness and education about agricultural biotechnology, and nowhere is this influence more dynamic than in China. Broad public interest in rural issues has led to a growing demand by commercial and government-owned media outlets for information about many aspects of agriculture and agriculture technology. Yet there is no single authoritative resource on agricultural biotechnology for journalists. The CropLife China Biotech Committee works with others stakeholders in the science and agriculture community to be a useful source of information on agricultural biotechnology by providing members of the media with workshops, field visits, online platforms and publications.
Workshops
Workshops are a good way for journalists to gain in-depth information and access to independent experts in a short amount of time, and are especially useful when they are focused on a ‘hot topic’ of current public interest.
CropLife China usually hosts two or three workshops on agricultural biotechnology per year – shifting locations from Beijing to other major cities, including those in agricultural provinces (e.g. Shanghai, Guangdong, Hubei, Jilin and Sichuan), to provide a variety of opportunities for journalists across all of China to participate. Twenty to thirty media outlets are invited to attend each event, including popular mainstream news outlets, as well as agriculture publications.
In July 2011, CropLife China hosted a workshop on “The Economic and Environmental Impact of Biotech Crops”, with presentations by British economist Graham Brookes, Professor Huang Dafang from the China Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Professor Hu Ruifa from the Beijing Institute of Technology. Participating reporters asked questions based on their interests, and several informative articles were published as a result.
Field visits
CropLife China also organizes field visits so journalists can gain in-depth knowledge and experiences of agricultural biotechnology in a real, field situation. The stories then give the public unique insights into the places where biotech crops are developed, tested and grown.
For the last several years, Chinese journalists have participated in CropLife Asia’s Farmer Exchange Program in the Philippines, where they have learned about the practicalities of regulating and growing biotech crops by visiting a country where it has been actively adopted (see related case study1). During the March 2012 Pan Asia Farmer Exchange, journalists published daily real-time microblog reports on their experiences while travelling in the Philippines with a group of 70 farmers, journalists, scientists and others from around Asia. In-depth articles were published later.
CropLife China also provides information to media working on specific projects related to plant biotechnology. In 2011, a production team from the educational division of Chinese Central Television (CCTV) began work on an extensive program on agricultural biotechnology to be aired on channels that target consumer and farmer audiences. CropLife China supported the production team with experts and recommended sites to visit in the United States and in China, such as the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, the Biotechnology Research Institute and Institute of Plant Protection at the China Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing, and Hainan Province in southern China where field trials of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) corn and other agriculture biotechnology crops are grown.
Online media platform
CropLife China and its partners are working on innovative ways to provide information through new media and online sources because the Chinese public increasingly turns to the Internet for news and information on every subject, including agricultural biotechnology.
For example, “GMO Dialogue”, an online news portal associated with the most popular social website in China, was launched as a comprehensive site about agriculture biotechnology with links to news, blogs, videos and microblogs in April 2012.2
The portal provides journalists, bloggers and microbloggers with a constant stream of accurate and timely information about agricultural biotechnology which they can then reference and republish to their audiences.
The site collects content from a range of sources in China’s agriculture and science communities. News articles are drawn from sources such as the Chinese Academy of Science’s Science News magazine, scientific journals and CropLife China. The goal is to provide information to outlets from which it can easily flow to all the different sources of news that people consult today.
In this way, a single story in the print media may be published online and from there go to many other websites, blogs or microblogs, generating a bigger impact and broader reach in educating and raising awareness in the public about biotechnology.
Publication of a reference handbook
Journalists need a solid reference to help them assess the frequent developments in agricultural biotechnology and put them into context. The China Science Media Center of the Science Times, working with CropLife China and others, aims to fill this need with its new handbook on agricultural biotechnology.
The journalist resource book Agriculture Biotechnology Resource Book is being developed in 2012 and contains three sections. In the first section, articles by eminent Chinese science reporters provide perspectives on writing stories about agricultural biotechnology and related topics. The second section lays out basic information about biotech crops in a comprehensive and understandable way for journalists, in their own language. It includes assessments of safety, data and information on benefits and clarifications of common misunderstandings with links to all source materials. The final section of the book contains contact information for key scientists working in the field of agricultural biotechnology in China and other countries, so they can go directly to the experts as needed.
Conclusion
The public’s interest in agricultural biotechnology in China is evolving rapidly, and journalists work hard to keep up. With the help of relevant new resources from the agriculture and science communities in workshops, during field visits, and via online platforms and publications, the media can continue to play a strong role in raising awareness and educating the public about agricultural biotechnology.
1 http://www.croplife.org/Files/Upload/Docs/PanAsiaFarmers_HiRes.pdf
2 http://news.qq.com/zt2012/gene/